TipiTip

Tipitip gets up early every morning to make sure he gets his implausibly large nose into as much trouble as possible. By the time you unwrap the brightly-coloured chewing gum wrappers, he is dressed up in his full attire. His thick-rimmed glasses sit precariously on the aforementioned nose. He wears a yellow cardigan that buttons halfway up to his chest, a polka-dotted green bowtie, a pair of dayglo orange trousers and occasionally a peculiar round hat that defies description. He occasionally gets stuck in traffic jams, presumably as he is rushing to work. His blond hair and formal outfit strike a remarkable contrast with fellow motorists who are drawn with pot-bellies, hairy-shoulders, and bushy moustaches. Among these men whose appearance is supposed to be typical for his part of the world, poor Tipitip looks like a novice cold war spy trying to conceal a hidden camera with his awkwardly sized fashion accessories. 

The gum around which Tipitip is wrapped was a chunky rectangle, coarsely textured with two narrow arches. It would balance on your tongue perfectly while you pulled it gently toward your molars.  The tiny piece of joyfully coloured wax paper, with a simple story barely over two frames, was the real reason you spent your pocket change on Tipitip. You used to love flattening the creases on the marbled paper with your chubby fingers and smell its sweet fragrance before reading the comic. You would stuff your pockets with his little stories for family road trips under the scorching summer sun. You would pull them out carefully so they don't fly off from the fully rolled-down windows of the family car. Unlike your real friends, Tipitip could be whatever you wanted him to be, a portable blank canvas on which you can project all the qualities you wished real people had.  

Tipitip pours himself a cup of coffee and wonders what loopy shenanigans he will get up to today...

By your late teens, you had a falling out with Tipitip. His clean humour and his subtle-bourgeois morals, felt as trite as the synthetic flavour of the bubblegum he is wrapped around. His outdated sense of fashion started to make him look like your grandparents’ friends, those who would perpetually tell you how much you have grown up. When you were barely fifteen, puberty descended on your head like an ACME anvil, leaving you flat on the pavement. By the time you scraped yourself off with a spatula, Tipitip and his saccharine sense of humour had started to seem too tame, too ineffective at challenging the norms that you were so eager to defy. 

So you got into more in-your-face, fuck-the-system type shit. A clumsy little fella with a chunky bowtie was not cool anymore. T-shirts with the pope smoking a massive joint was cool, stickers in which well known corporate logos were redesigned to say: "FUCK OFF" was cool, stencil graffitis showing Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders boxing bare-knuckled was cool. You spat the candied taste of gum from your mouth and wrapped new words around your tongue: "Down with globalism! down with neoliberalism!" you said, sometimes to no one, sometimes to a full room. In spite of all the promises the entertainment industry made to you, you would never be a ghostbuster or a ninja turtle. You were never gonna defend your house from robbers by strategically placing your toys around. Your brief appearance on the world stage was never intended to have a speaking part. You started to feel like the centre of the world was trying to sedate you with junk food and blockbusters. You were suspicious of everything. 

For starters, you couldn't shake off the idea that Tipitip might be an undercover CIA operative who is sent to destabilise your country. No one around you looked, lived or acted as he did. You had never been to a house like the one where Tipitip and his wife Tipitoş lived. But when you saw him staring at a pile of dishes by the kitchen door vowing to similarly bespectacled Tipitoş that he would soon buy her a dishwasher; or when you saw him clumsily fail to repair his car on the lawn of his freshly mowed garden; or when you saw him in the bathroom informing a visibly vexed fireman that the fire engine is his only hope for a shower during a water outage, you felt like you knew your way around their cosy suburban home. 

It is the exact same house gringos have lived in for an immense period of human history. One that stretches from The Flintstones to The Jetsons. 

You really couldn't shake off the idea that Tipitip might be an undercover CIA operative who is sent to destabilise your country. But that seems unfair. Because despite your young age you already knew what a CIA agent looks like. You saw Paul Henze on TV denying allegations of US involvement in the 1980 military coup. He then praised the same coup for liquidating the terrorists who had infiltrated the country's largest trade union. Henze, the *real* spy; with his ill-kept beard, his tobacco-stained yellow teeth, his permanent frown and his crocodile-green polyester suit looks nothing like dear old Tipitip. The man who called president Carter on September 12 1980 to announce: "our boys did it", is more like what Dr No and Fu Manchu would look like if they had been Caucasian. 

Tipitip is painting a football pattern over a cannonball, so unsuspecting passersby will be tempted to give it a hard kick. 

There is no turning back now. Tipitip has unravelled into your memories for good. His blond hair, his suburban home and his outlandish sense of fashion have entwined around your spine like poison ivy. As you start to get older you will start to look like all the *other* men in Tipitip’s world. Hair will start sprouting all over you like a dark forest. You will sweat profusely, no matter how much deodorant you spray into the ozone. Even your mother will half-jokingly threaten to wax your shoulders while you are asleep. You will hate going to the beach for about three years. Then all of a sudden, you will stop caring.

Tipitip is walking on all fours next to a sign that reads: "do not step on the grass."

Tipitip is appearing as a guest on a late-night talk show. The presenter is a jug-eared comedian whose career took a downhill turn after a series of ill-calculated political statements. You used to be a big fan of his cynicism in your early twenties when the angry phase of your adolescence was at its peak. He had a boiling rage against the mediocrity of society. His raw anger made you feel alive. Over a decade later his sense of righteous indignation makes you shiver with discomfort. You have long stopped hanging out with friends who force you to watch his youtube clips: "This is the last one, valla I promise you gonna love this one..." The comedian’s all-black suit and red paisley neckerchief reflect the persisting ambition to be remembered as more than just a "funny guy". 

"We have a surprise guest with us tonight at the studio, who is sure to revive some cherished childhood memories. Let's see if you will remember him!" he says, obsessively fixing the collar of his shirt...

Tipitip appears from behind a heavy corduroy curtain as the studio band kicks in with a drumroll and a brass-heavy upbeat jingle, which may or may not be the theme tune for the show. The crowd cheers in recognition. Tipitip points to his nose and winks at the crowd as if to say: "I know how you recognised me." As he makes his way to the couch he steps on a banana peel and falls on his ass, sending the room into roaring laughter. The presenter claps mockingly with an enormous phoney smile plastered on his face. 

He is not the only one in the room who has undergone a makeover. Tipitip now looks like an IT technician in his early 30's with a short-sleeve-starch-white shirt and a reassuringly oversized necktie with magenta stripes. He rubs his behind while making his way to the leather couch. The presenter cuts over the fading laughter to declare: "you have done it again Tipitip!"

Tipitip bashfully scratches the back of his head. "I have, haven't I?" His self-awareness sends a ripple of chuckles across the auditorium. 

"So! Tipitip! While everyone in the entertainment sector is starting to turn into dinosaurs you almost seem to be getting younger every day. To what do you owe your eternal youth?"

"Why to being a cartoon character of course!"

The room claps and applauds. Amused and bewildered in equal measure.

"That must help of course. But you have also changed your style haven't you?"

"Well yes. My agent believes that I have a great nostalgic appeal for millennials who have grown up with my face. But I need to adapt to the times to stay relevant. The world is not what it was back in the ‘80s and ‘90s."

"You can say that again!” He turns meaningfully to the camera, fixing his collar for the umpteenth time. “So, what kind of changes have you made exactly?" 

"Well, the packaging has changed for starters. I am now sold in resealable cardboard multi-packs. They sort of look like an envelope and the cartoons are printed inside the flap as opposed to individual wrappers."

"Cutting costs?" He directs the question to his guest but ends the sentence by turning to the audience for approval. Murmurs emerge from among the seats. Is this where the gloves come off? 

"I think of it more as modernising." 

"Sure... I hope we can count on the humour being the same?"

"Absolutely! I get into the same loopy shenanigans and invent clumsy solutions for everyday problems. I think people in Turkey need a good clean laugh today more than they ever did before." 

"Is that because..."

You turn off the TV. You know where the rest of the interview is going to go. The pretentious presenter will bring up the allegations about Tipitip's involvement with the CIA and he will detract by making a silly little gag. Then there will be some back and forth about whether the mission of comedy is to enlighten or entertain the masses. You are too old for either of them. 

Tipitip has returned backstage after the show. He looks like a squirrel, mouth filled with his own chewing gum. He keeps popping a new one as soon as the fruity taste starts to fade. Back in the day, it used to linger for much longer.